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Wow what a frantic journey the last 24 hours has been...heck, actually less than 24 hours, but a new Model S will soon have a new home!

A bit of background info - I've been thinking about my next car for a little while since my BMW M235i lease is up in a couple of months, so knew I needed to get something. I've been interested in the Model S for years, but it was out of my price range in years past, but now it was on my radar along with a BMW M4.

So last weekend I went and test drove the Model S for the first time. I liked it, but didn't love it. It wasnt the car that was a problem though, it was more my mentality. Ever car I've ever had except one have been 6 speed manuals...I like the shifting, I like the exhaust revving, and all of the "old" stuff I was used to. I kind of wrote the Tesla off, planning to stop by BMW to test drive an M4 sometime soon. Thing is, the more time passed since driving the Tesla, the more I kept thinking about it. Then I started looking at the M4 and quickly came to the realization that the M4 is really more of the same as I've been driving for 3 years. The thought of that really wasnt all that exciting.

With that, I made the decision that the Model S would be it. Now the question was do I order one and wait 3 months, or try to find an inventory one that has everything I would option anyway. I thought that you see on their website was all they had for inventory, but then learned about ev-cpo.com on here and saw a whole range of options. Found one that almost matched, called my rep, who then said there are even more available that could be available.

He located on that checked all the boxes, actually had more than I would probably have ordered if I was building myself, but nothing that I did not like, so I decided to pull the trigger. Timeframe from him telling me about the car and me calling to say let's do it was about 2.5 hours. I gave my payment info, thought I was all set, only to get a call a short time later that the car had actually already sold about 1.5 hours earlier. Pretty crushing, but figured what can you do, probably better to just order it anyway and come out a bit better price wise too (since I was planning on get a 60, vs this was a 75D).

Fast forward to this morning...I was playing with the Design Studio again and decided to look into the difference between the old NextGen seats and the new Premium seats. I really liked the NextGen seats and their bolstering, super comfortable and gave the interior a very sport feel.

Decided to go back by the Tesla store this morning to see the difference and knew right away that I did not want the new Premium seats, so the only choice was to find a car an Inventory car instead of buying new since the NextGen seats were discontinued.

So I'm sitting in the model in the store, which has the NextGen seats, Premium Pkgand a really nice matte wood grain trim vs carbon fiber...and I'm thinking man, this looks really nice. I had seen it before and really liked it, but I thought it was the "Matte Obeche" wood, which has been discontinued and never even considered it was the "Figured Ash" because online the Figured Ash looks glossy and way lighter than in person.

Long story short, the rep found a car in California with the exact options I wanted (also has the Cold Weather Pkg that gives you heated seats in the rear, heated steering wheel, heated wipers and nozzles - pretty much a waste for AZ but whatever). Deposit was made and car will be delivered on or before December 28th!

I searched for a non sunroof car because I literally have never used the sunroof in any of the cars I've had, always have had the hard shade closed. Not only did I not use it, but found that if even the hard shade was open, the noise level in the car was louder.

On the Tesla, I didn't like that there is no hard shade to close and being here in AZ, the summers are obviously super hot and as much as the Tesla rep said that the glass does not let the heat in, I'm just too skeptical. I've had loaner cars from Mercedes that had a similar roof and in the summer I could just feel the heat radiating down. I'm on the taller side, so my head is naturally closer to the roof and maybe that's why.

I feel the sunroof is more for passengers than the driver. I sat in the showroom model for a while and when "driving", you don't even notice the sunroof.

Lastly, I'm probably odd in the sense that I like a "closed in" wrap around type of cockpit feel in the car, not a big fan of the openness with glass roofs (test drove the Model X and the huge windshield was freaking me out ).

Potential downside could be when it comes to resale as most people do seem to prefer the Pano roof.

Right now I'm 2k apart on an inventory car. Trying to decide if I should eat the difference and just make the leap.

Click to expand...

Is it something that you absolutely do not like, or is it an extra that you probably normally would not buy but it's an "upgrade"?

That's how I looked at it. The sunroof is a perfect example. $1,500 for something that I actually felt was a downgrade for me personally. But other things, like the "D" I wasn't planning on buying if I were to custom build, but it's definitely an upgrade and something Im sure Ill like.

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